Comments on: All day, and all of the night

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 04:09:08 +0000

“would enable meetups” It also enables stalkers. Never had it happen but I have had dudes who thought that since I was female and talking to them in game and living in the same part of the world as them, that I was totally amenable to meeting IRL.

By: Murex

Murex — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:24:35 +0000

I seem to do most of my playing in the middle of the night. In fact, as I write this, it’s 1:30 am, and I’m waiting for my random dungeon group to pop.

By: Jal

Jal — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:56:58 +0000

You know, this brings up the question I always had — why do they need Tuesday downtime? Why isn’t WoW on [more] redundant servers? Would make things a heck of a lot easier when patches break something too.

But seriously, who would accept 6/(24*7) == 3.5% downtime for their web or database server farm?

We’re being robbed [even if Tues is, b/c of the downtime, the most productive day of the week...].

By: spinks

spinks — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:24:09 +0000

No one would ever do that, it makes no economic sense (sadly). But a cheaper sub for only playing off-peak would be an interesting notion.

I think you’re right about a worldwide MMO, but when servers are already split between EU/US/wherever then you don’t really get the same level of around the clock activity.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:18:59 +0000

How about a cheaper sub option for only being able to play during peak hours?

As to the original question, I like having the option to log on whenever, but almost all of my gaming tends to fall in a five hour band at the end of my day. If I’m not exercising that option to log in earlier, it’s really no skin off my nose to lose that option.

That said, I think a worldwide MMO needs to have servers up at all times, since everyone has different schedules. It’s not about my schedule alone, it’s about the schedule of all the players.

By: SlikRX/Balthazario

SlikRX/Balthazario — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:56:36 +0000

I don’t get home til 8pm most nights, and by the time I eat, get settled in, it’s usually not until9 pm that I get to log in and get playing.

If I were on teh east cost, this wouldn’t be much of an issue, I could just find a west coast server that is in it’s prime then. As it is, I live on the west coast, so much of my weekday playing is off-peak.

As others have said, it’s more peaceful, nodes are more plentiful and you get to see some odd Horde/Ally raids.

BUT, it’s also the time that the more hardcore get into the BGs, so that usually sucks, and there are less people PUGging, so that wait times in LFG can hit 30 minutes.

The odd, half asleep feeling is not something I like, because I enjoy remembering my play time. I can learn from it, smile about itor whatever. If I’m too tired, I can’t remember it…

By: Dblade

Dblade — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:23:56 +0000

A lot of people work second or third shift. MMOS are great for that, when you come home at midnight and nothing is open, and everyone else is asleep. Some of us also are night owls: I routinely play late into the evening, and it’s great fun.

If they changed it by timezones the game wouldn’t survive. Even in the USA, where the difference between EST and PST is 3 or so hours.

By: Enforced Localization - We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

Enforced Localization - We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:00:59 +0000

[...] Spinks posted an interesting article about what times of the day most people play MMOs at and it got me thinking about my own gaming habits. At the turn of the century (I just love saying that) I was deeply engrossed in Everquest and my preferred playtime was late night and early morning, usually around 9pm – 2am. I couldn’t possible game like that now but what is interesting to me is not so much when I played, but where I played. The Internet: Making Internationalization A Nightmare [...]

By: Bristal

Bristal — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:33:10 +0000

I got up in the middle of the night every few days for a few weeks hunting for Loque’Nahak. I loved that it felt sneaky and that it took discipline and commitment. And the prize was that much more satisfying.

By: Jal

Jal — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:58:38 +0000

This is why Proudmoore rules. Middle of the night? It’s tomorrow already, Aussie time. I’m not sure why the adopted it, but our small guild has a few Aussies, and before xserver PUGs, I couldn’t help but get someone from New Zealand nearly every time I played.